


On your six, Boss

by spae (orphan_account)



Category: NCIS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Awkward Flirting, F/M, Gibbs' PoV, Pre-Relationship, Unresolved Sexual Tension, why yes I will be testing your comprehension with inference questions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 13:44:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15292797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/spae
Summary: Gibbs recruits always-a-girl Toni DiNozzo from the Baltimore PD and finds himself with a project ... and twitching fingers.





	On your six, Boss

Baltimore

She is tall and green-eyed with a wicked sense of humour; she doesn’t take any shit from anyone, but she will happily dish it out. She does not respect her boss and it gives him pause - but after a brief conversation with the man, he can see why. He wants her as soon as he sees her on a job. _On his team_ , yeah. He also had to explain _that_ to Morrow twice; that under her armour she effortlessly embodies the role of competent and capable police officer.

Before he returns to DC, he tells her to pack her stuff and she raises a querulous eyebrow.

“Monday the twenty-seventh,” he says, tossing down a card with the Navy Yard address on it. “Shift starts at oh-seven-thirty.”

He does not look back at her, but the interesting body language of her soon-to-be-ex boss tells him that she does not consider ignoring him.

Good.

He does not like being ignored.

 

Washington

She comes in early, does not bring him coffee and is comfortably dressed - as if she expects that there will be a lot of legwork. He suppresses the suspicion that he may prefer her more than anyone else he has ever worked with.

He is not working with anyone else right now. Morrow tells him he needs to find more members for his team, but he likes the fact that Toni is his only concern at the moment.

She quickly makes acquaintances throughout the office, but not with Abby. It’s frustrating for him, as they take a good six weeks to test their boundaries before becoming fast friends. Abby says Toni is like a piercing and Gibbs does not quite understand this analogy because he never wanted a piercing, but Abby loves piercings; she says they are only painful and irritating when you first get them.

His own experience with Toni is not so hard won. Sometimes she plays the fool and tries to press his buttons and sometimes she is visibly overawed by him, but she is always looking for his attention.

Morrow looks at him askance, but says nothing.

Ducky makes inappropriate remarks when she’s out of earshot, but he doesn’t ask her for a date, which calms something in him.

They form a good team, with him leading and her always guarding his back, and when he accepts Vivian onto his team, this does not change, but Toni does.

It’s probably imperceptible to those who do not know her like him, but when she’s watched, she acts the way people expect her to act.

Gibbs expects the moon, so she gives it to him and then looks at him like he hung the damn thing - but Vivian looks down on her for being a cop and not coming from the hallowed halls of the J. Edgar Hoover building, and so she acts accordingly. Every little prejudice that Vivian has about cops is enacted grotesquely in front of her and the woman does not even suspect that she is being played with.

He watches. And Toni smiles lazily at him until he tells her to get back to work.

Which she does, but it makes his fingers twitch. He has to find something he can do with them when they do that.

It also makes him look for excuses to get rid of Vivian. He does not like to think that he is setting her up to fail, so he just does not think about it.

Toni knows what he’s doing, he’s sure. She leaves behind the memory of absolute efficiency while she does whatever task he has given her with a cheerful, “On it, Boss.”

He does not let Vivian work alone if he can help it; tries not to compare how much easier it was to train Toni to his way of working.

After the fuck-up in Spain, he is relieved for the opportunity to get rid of Vivian. To be fair, she came looking for revenge and was pretty happy to go, never truly fitting in with their little family. She has probably learned that there is no absolution in revenge, but he does not care.

Toni mentions her a few times, and he either grunts or shuts her down, so in time she stops.

They fall back into their old routine, working the jobs alone until they need help from specialists.

He sees again a change in Toni as Dave from Cyber Crimes comes to them to help with a case. Toni is not computer-savvy, much like himself, but he does not begrudge that different skills complement each other. Toni, however, seems to feel her lack, because she flirts outrageously and generally scares Dave from entering the open-plan office, a feat that makes her cackle and grin unapologetically, and he finds his fingers twitching again.

“With me, DiNozzo,” he snaps, heading out for coffee and she’s answering him before he’s finished saying her name.

“On your six, Boss.”

When they enter the elevator, she opens her mouth to say something and he glares at her.

“What, boss?”

“Leave the boy alone, DiNozzo, he’s just doing his job.

“Oh, come on, he’s a complete mama’s boy with no experience! I’ve only offered –”

He hits her on the top of her head – and this time he does not find his fingers twitching, the urge finally satisfied.

“What was that for?”

She looks at him wide-eyed, and not in an I-will-report-you kind of way.

“Work it out, DiNozzo.”

As the elevator descends she rubs her head and pouts, but her eyes reveal the glimmer of a smile.


End file.
